Four Shappennings in One!


Shappenning #1

Yesterday afternoon three of our supervisors and I spent an hour conducting our annual "Summer Workers Pizza and Wings Forum". Once a year we gather our summer workers to accomplish a few important things.

Our summer workers can be high school or college students or anyone looking for work in the summer. Sometimes, like this year, we hire school teachers who are looking for something good to do while they make some extra money. This year we had two high school grads about to go off for their first year of college and a special education teacher from a local district.

The primary purpose of the forum is to encourage these, usually young, folks to make a life time commitment to people with disabilities. This can be done through employment (with us we hope), volunteerism, or by just being an enlightened and good citizen / neighbor. A secondary purpose is to thank them for their hard work. And a third is to clarify our proactive philosophy and positive approach.

Shappenning #2

Usually during the forum we serve pizza and wings. This year their Program Director, Molly Little, added a new twist; Shappenning #2. Rather than serving the pizza during the forum, at its conclusion Molly arranged for us to join the rest of her staff in the dining room so that her entire team could recognize them, cementing relationships and acknowledging their good work over a pre-dinner snack.

Shappenning #3

The highlight, for me any way, was the activity Molly cooked up. Between bites, she asked her staff to think of their best advice, a few words of wisdom or an encouraging message they would like each of the summer workers to have. She then asked them to copy the message three times on strips of colored paper.

As they handed each of the summer workers one of their notes Molly asked them to use the tape, she also arranged for, to link the strips into a Caring Chain each could use to decorate their dorm rooms, classroom or homes. Molly’s idea was that they could reflect back on these messages over the upcoming weeks and months.

What a thoughtful shappening kind of idea!

Shappenning #4

This morning I learned that on the way home that night as one of our newest staff was driving home, she spotted one of these very same summer workers walking home with his chain wrapped around his neck. She stopped her car, backing up traffic, jumped out and took a photo of him.

I laughed and laughed. You know, some times (actually quite frequently) I can't believe I get paid to be part of these shappennings.


It’s amazing how positivity breads more positivity and its amazing how one good thing can quickly turn into four. Keep that in mind the next time you have an opportunity to create a shappening.

A new word …. Shappening!


Sometimes you can’t find the right word to describe something. In some cases we need to invent a word and that’s what I’m doing now.

Shappenning (shap ening) n. any occurrence, activity or event which promotes or demonstrates any of the Shift Happens concepts.